Diane Aarts: Art blog

something's different about grandma...

2012-02-14T19:44:00.000-08:00

drawn and painted in Adobe photoshop cs5
for a monthly art challenge at work

female knight

2012-02-05T17:16:00.000-08:00

drawn in graphite, painted in photoshop CS5. Just for fun.

basically drew a pretty horse and wanted a rider to go with it.

Factoids:
Female knights did exist in many parts of Europe, they were called "dames" instead.
The term chivalry originally had nothing to do with being polite. It refers to horsemanship.

windmill

2012-01-17T18:32:00.000-08:00

Wanted a little practice with layout, so here's a windmill on a rock.

drawn in graphite, shaded in photoshop CS5.

life drawing

2012-01-08T18:10:00.000-08:00

I attended the occasional open life drawing class this fall in Toronto. Here's a few drawings from that:

conte

pastel

conte


marker and pastel

conte

flower paintings

2012-01-01T15:43:00.001-08:00

These were both painted as Christmas gifts for my mom. Both are acrylic on canvas, 16"x20" It was interesting to go back to acrylic after painting digitally for so long.Happy new year everyone!

Winter Wonderland

2011-12-23T04:58:00.000-08:00

Happy holidays everyone, have a good one!

done for an art challenge at work themed "winter wonderland"
character line art done in illustrator, characters and backgrounds painted in adobe photoshop cs5.

Royal Winter fair 2011

2011-12-07T18:26:00.001-08:00

So this year I find myself living right by Toronto's Exhibition Place, so when the Royal Winter fair came around I had no excuse not to come by and draw some critters.

Conte, marker, ink, pencil, and gouache, some toning was done digitally.

Digital doodles

2011-11-20T19:02:00.001-08:00

Coming soon: Royal winter Fair stuff. Until then here's some digital doodles:

Painted in the summertime in photoshop cs5 using http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/animalanatomy.php

Profile pic

2011-10-30T18:06:00.000-07:00

I made an updated profile pic today, actual avatar is pretty small so here's a closer look:

Drawn/painted in Adobe Illustrator CS5.

Holland

2011-10-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

So in September I spent a week in Holland with my mom, here's some drawings and paintings from my trip.

people at the airport

Some various birds from my tante Maria's farm.

waiting for dinner at a bistro. -ink

added some colour with photoshop

there was a hobo playing the accordian, he made my day. -Marker

doodle from the planeride home, cleaned up in photoshop

on the Go train

2011-10-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

I love riding the train, simply because its an excuse to sit around and draw people..

and also a doggie sketch I added colour to this morning..

24 hour film

2011-08-13T19:09:00.000-07:00

So this was a 24 hour film, done as part of MANIMATE- A 24 hour film fest. Thanks to Ashlyn Anstee for hosting this event. The theme of this fest was "coveted"

The character, gun and table were all found online. The animation, effects and background were all done by me. Animated in Maya, background painted in Adobe Photoshop CS5, composited in after effects.

Sound effects courtesy of soundbible.com
Manimate website: http://www.ashlyna.com/manimate/

Flash GIFs

2011-08-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

So these guys were created for the kids page of a mold and bacteria laboratory. You can see all the bugs under "kids corner" here Each of these represents a type of mold, bacteria or virus.

Designed, built and animated by me using Adobe flash CS5.

sketchbook dump

2011-07-20T18:40:00.000-07:00

So this week I did a bit of scanning, these are some sketches from school this year, mostly doodles and charicatures from class.

Flipbook!

2011-06-22T18:18:00.001-07:00

(Regarding the old lady and dog)
"Was this an original concept piece for your film?"
"No, that was from Mythology class yesterday."

wow this feels like so long ago.. Anyways these were my pages for this year's flipbook at Sheridan.

Somehow I still squeezed in time for some life drawing.. A closer look since I like this fella..

Blind Luck

2011-05-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

Well its been a pretty long 8 months, but here's the final product, my fourth year film at Sheridan. Enjoy!

Blind Luck from diane aarts on Vimeo.

rough animation

2011-03-13T08:19:00.000-07:00

So here's the rough animation reel of my fourth year film, blind luck. Pencil tests may be a bit light...

life drawing

2010-12-22T07:15:00.001-08:00

winter 2010 life drawing portfolio...
conte, pastel, ink and gouache

blind luck layout reel

2010-12-20T07:45:00.000-08:00

Well winter break is upon us, only one semester left.. so here's the latest version of my layout reel

oh, and also a colour script!

Royal Winter fair '10

2010-12-15T07:05:00.000-08:00

some very overdue sketches from the fair this year..

Design pack

2010-11-08T05:51:00.000-08:00

very excited to be beginning production! Anyways here's some pages from the design pack..

(I should add for the colour I will probably be doing something warmer/more colourful. )

leica- revised

2010-10-28T06:14:00.000-07:00

so after the screening last week I made some revisions, mostly just an alternative ending and some timing things. I'm curious as to what people think about the new ending.

leica!

2010-10-20T14:55:00.000-07:00

So, its been a while and many many revisions but here is the current version of my leica. The only part I remain iffy about is the ending, which I'm revising asap. Also plan to go through and push the staging and expressions overall just to see what can be made funnier. If you have any suggestions the comments page is a wonderful thing, I'd love to hear your thoughts/ideas. :)

city stuff

2010-08-22T07:33:00.000-07:00

So summer's starting to wrap up, here's a few things from the past week... first off a sketch I did of a shoe repair shop (of all things) in east aurora. I love the buildings on main street, apparently the town was once filled with craftsmen and architects so the village has a lot of very quaint old architecture. Markers and ink.
which went on to inspire this concept art for fourth year. I've played with other ideas here and there but keep coming back to this one. Pencil and photoshop.

and finally some rough beat boards, wanted to try to tell the whole story in four images. (If its unclear/needs more tell me.) critisism is welcome now more than ever.

2010-08-01T17:04:00.001-07:00

I've been listening to too many showtunes.

mermaids are really mean

2010-07-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

During a long weekend last week I went home for a bit and saw Peter Pan the play in Stratford with my family. This little gem was said by a young girl during intermission:Drawn in ink, painted in photoshop CS4.

random things

2010-06-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

went to the niagara aquarium with my roomate Diana. It's tiny but there were still lots of interesting critters..

Marty McFly:Went to See Toy Story 3 with my coworkers. It was definitely worth the wait. and even more doggy sketches

doodle dump

2010-06-06T17:45:00.000-07:00

last week I biked down the road to this little service centre on the corner. I'm co-oping in the little town of East Aurora, which looks like something right out of the 60s.

this pretty much sums up third year.

also been doing tons of dog studies and drawings, trying to come up with an appealing guy for fourth year.

vector art

2010-05-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

playing with the pen tool... (despite what some ppl asked this isn't me, its based off a charicature I did of someone a while back)

fourth year film pitch package

2010-05-17T06:56:00.000-07:00

this was my fourth year film pitch package. I may actually go with this story, it still needs tweaking (and definitely some condensing) but I like that it's sort of an acting piece, with a chance to throw in some good backgrounds and such too.

Suggestions: if you have any let me know, I've gotten some good ones so far and I'm not so stuck on this story that I'm not willing to make changes or completely turn it around if need be. Also gonna come up with some better designs over the break.

life drawing

2010-05-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

some animations

2010-05-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

(from Apollo's Mission) so this is why I disappeared for two months. did everything in these shots. (except the very end of the car scene, young apollo/guy with the fro is Aminder's) drawn in graphite coloured in flipbook composited in after effects.

I am not dead.

2010-05-07T13:52:00.000-07:00

so third year is complete and a few weeks ago we finally emerged from our studio tired, unkempt, hungry, and with basic hygeine and sleep as only a distant memory. However we did manage to scrap together some wonderful films and if we were lucky, learned a thing or two. Not to sound like an old record (or whatever the saying is nowadays) but I thought it was a pretty good experience. Anyways my blog's been dead for the last two months however I've got two months of artistic backwash to dump on the internet. (so be warned.)

so just to get the ball rolling here's some layouts and paintings from the film.. only posting the stuff i did everything for, except the colour script, which sandra worked on too.

music leica reel

2010-03-11T18:57:00.000-08:00

a leica reel based on the song "aquarium" by Camille Saint-Saëns.

fourth year film sketches and stuff

2010-02-21T18:15:00.000-08:00

so these are some pics from my fourth year film presentation. The working title is Max until I can come up with something cleverer. At this point everything is still flexible, especially the plot and characters.
Here's the basic plot: guide dog hates his job/wants attention from his owner, dog tries to fetch a ball dragging owner across city, dog loses owner/finds him in the middle of an intersection, dog rescues owner/gets rewarded.
I'm flipflopping between having him chase the ball cuz he hates his job or wants to be rewarded by his owner.
oh, and I also want to escalade the gags during the chase scene.. I don't think this will be complete until something explodes.
enough blabbering. here's some sketches.

this was a sketch I did way back in september... things have changed a bit since then..

got a ton of awesome videos and pics and sketches from the lions guide dogs of canada in oakville. The people there were awesome, I was lucky enough to sit in on a class where the dogs were being trained, which made for excellent reference.

gloria walk cycle

2010-02-20T17:34:00.000-08:00

test animation for our group film...

dancing puppet

2010-01-29T18:41:00.000-08:00

who says wire and apoxee can't be sexy?

done for fun in extra stop mo workshop @ sheridan college. thanks to everyone that organised it, this was great fun to make.

song from "Dance: 10 Looks: 3"

2010-01-16T17:16:00.000-08:00

experimenting with painting backgrounds.. flat tones vs something more painterly...

s'cuse me, miss....

2010-01-15T06:18:00.001-08:00

just for fun.

demo reel

2010-01-09T16:59:00.000-08:00

flamingo painting

2010-01-09T16:43:00.000-08:00

something I did very quickly for my sisters room.. carpet was pink....

sketch dump

2010-01-09T16:38:00.001-08:00

some sketches I did this week.. a sparrow reporter character, a flamingo for something I worked up for my sister and some sketches from watching the Peoples choice awards...

the kite- work reel

2009-12-20T16:46:00.000-08:00

story reel with action analysis...
action analysis painted in flipbook and composited in after effects.

thinking character

2009-12-20T16:08:00.000-08:00

created in maya, last 3d assignment of the semester

Puppet walk

2009-12-20T15:24:00.000-08:00

final stop motion assignment of the year.. kept getting technical difficulties, but I think it turned out ok nonetheless...

action analysis WIP

2009-12-20T14:07:00.000-08:00

layout, painting, and test composition for action analysis...

3d walk cycle

2009-11-15T18:05:00.000-08:00

my first shot at a 3d walk, finished this a few weeks ago but figured it was still worth posting...

created in maya

desert layouts

2009-11-15T18:03:00.001-08:00

some rough desert layouts done for group film fun pack

Puppet smash

2009-11-14T08:52:00.000-08:00

action analysis for stop motion. Nothing special, but I think it gets the job done. Shot in frametheif.

royal winter fair

2009-11-14T07:53:00.001-08:00

some sketches from the fair, having fun with pens markers pencil and guache

life drawing paintings

2009-11-13T07:58:00.001-08:00

some 5/10 minute paintings from class, we're having some fun wih different mediums..

france layout

2009-11-08T17:24:00.000-08:00

I notice I never get any layout stuff up... anyways this is a very quick rough layout done for the rough fun pack for our third year film.. a rather tasty looking shot of paris.

24 hour manimation festival

2009-10-26T16:25:00.000-07:00

so did a 24 hour film, which was both fun and very draining at the same time. The theme was "revenge".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbY9vrIIbGg

I'm still not sure what to think of the final product, but considering the tiny amount of time I think it turned out okay. Collaberated with Matt kramer and Laurel Dalgleish, who are awesome.

Oh, and Happy Halloween. :)

pitch package stuff

2009-10-25T07:24:00.001-07:00

some stuff I did last week for our pitch package, all drawn in graphite and painted in photoshop.
to see the complete pitch package, go to http://group-hugs.blogspot.com/2009/10/pitch-package.html

this was a beat board for our pitch..

this one was a rough colour script for people painting beat boards to use as a guide..

and also having fun with lightning...

stop motion assignment

2009-10-09T12:36:00.000-07:00

very first stop motion assignment, had to make the cars go along a specific path... first 13 frames drove me nuts. I finally started from scratch, adjusted the angle of the cars a bit and it all went smoothly from there. So far its been a really fun class, we're just playing with timing and spacing at the moment, eventually we go on to puppets. :)

shot in frametheif.

story reel, the kite

2009-10-06T17:33:00.000-07:00

rough story reel for action analysis. Done in premiere.

quick colour concept

2009-10-06T17:27:00.001-07:00

so this is a quick colour concept I did this sunday, literally took about half an hour. We were discussing having a sepia tone for flashbacks, I wanted to try a halfway between sepia and colour. Photoshop.

zoo trip

2009-10-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

went to the zoo on Saturday, which was much glorious fun. Here's some conte and pencil sketches from that trip...

pole vault concept

2009-09-28T16:59:00.000-07:00

so, we're finally getting the ball rolling on our third year film. :) This is a quick colour concept I did based on our idea (photoshop.)

colour doodles

2009-09-22T16:50:00.000-07:00

two little colour experimenty type things I did this weekend.. one for an animation analysis concept and one just for my synopsis pitch/fun. Pretty quick, I kind of like the watercolourish look I got with the top one.
Photoshop.

Super wedding

2009-09-15T15:43:00.000-07:00

First time doing something digital for etsy. They wanted a comic book cover for the front of their wedding program. I had some fun with this one.

birch tree painting

2009-09-06T19:50:00.001-07:00

So with moving day coming so quickly I decided to make something big for this huge empty spot in our house. I'm kind of undecided whether I like this or not, I continued to change things constantly even after I'd finished. Mostly wanted something that would match with the room and not draw too much attention to itself. In my mind when I started this was extrememly abstract, but I wasnt happy with that and ended up adding some texture here and there. This was definitely a more experimental piece.

cup

2009-08-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

hey, so I did another quick study, probably about 2 hours, drawn + painted in photoshop.

Simply saw my cup sitting on my desk and thought it would make an interesting painting.

weather

2009-08-12T19:00:00.000-07:00

JULY IS NOT THE TIME FOR SOCKS.

At the Jazz club..

2009-07-27T15:14:00.000-07:00

something I whipped up recently for fun. I wanted to paint something blue... I don't know why...

Somewhat (but not really) inspired by Sunfest.

trees on a hill

2009-07-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

ah yes, I have now become one of those countless artists that paints trees on a hill.

(seriously type it into any image search engine. You'll get a bajillion paintings.)

I wanted to paint a wheat field before they were all harvested, and kept driving by yellow fields with purple clouds and thinking "man. I HAVE to paint that." I also wanted to paint it digitally, cuz I'm trying to get better at digital painting before third year hits us. I soon discovered two things:

1. My laptop lasts about 30 minutes when it is unplugged.

2. There are no wheat fields within extention cord reach.

dammit.

So instead I settled for painting these trees by sitting outside the milking parlour with an extension cord..

I toned down the colours a bit, they were mad. When you paint out in the sun with the laptop being backlit things get crazy...

cows with hats

2009-07-05T18:45:00.001-07:00

if you're wondering what possessed me to make such a piece, this was based on a comment on my recent upload of cow sketches. My friend Heather suggested I draw some cows with hats. So I did. Happy belated birthday Heather.

APPLES

2009-06-24T17:31:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. (which doesn't happen too often. :P ) I decided to stick by my one thing a week promise, so this morning I grabbed three apples and a piece of white cardboard and stuck them on my desk. I was suprised how quick this was, maybe two hours max, and I kind of wish I did something like this sooner, if you wish to practice digital painting I totally recommend doing a study of some sort, I think I learned a lot from this...

This week has been crazy busy, I've got a ton of aunts and uncles over for my parents 25th anniversary party (This saturday.) it feels like I'm in Holland or something... With dutchies an anniversary is sort of like a second wedding reception...

cow sketches

2009-06-18T18:45:00.000-07:00

alright so this time my weekly art dump was completely ignored, so I went out to the field and drew some cows for an hour. Wanted to finally put my markers to work, need some practice but they are quite fun, will use them again soon. Also while I was sitting there a fox ran right by me and across the field. When the cows saw this every single cow in there ran up to the fox to see it, which was quite funny, seeing a hundred or so heifers chasing after this poor little fox.

I've noticed that the second I leave oakville all my artwork becomes very very hick.

lawn mower of DOOOOOM

2009-06-10T18:05:00.000-07:00

Is anyone else as terrified of tipping a lawn mower as I am? I painted this after 7 hours of mowing the grass around the blueberry bushes at work, as soon as I go on the slightest slant it scares the bejebus outta me..

summer time...

2009-05-27T18:54:00.000-07:00

long time no post,

So May is coming to a close, and since I've been doing nada in terms of art I made myself a solemn vow to do at least one thing every week this summer. I've got a giant pile of ideas to do so I figure better do them now while I have time. Anyways since making that vow I've made this funky new avatar and this painting. Actually did this painting twice, the first time I was halfway through and just going for the save button when my computer crashed. Not so nice.

Lately at work I've been spraying 24-d and roundup on all the plants, and the blueberries are in that nice stage where the leaves are sort of a pinkish colour, so that and the flowers makes the fields just this huge splat of pretty colours. But I think I just wanted to play with some brushes on photoshop, I love the pastel for the clouds. For some reason I really love the pastel tool....

Anywho enjoy :)

3d character

2009-05-01T05:41:00.000-07:00

character I made last week in 3d modelling..

old west paintings

2009-04-22T12:08:00.000-07:00

five colour keys a layout and my character lineup from the "stagecoach" assignment, just finished today...

I ended up doing the character line up twice because I accidentally deleted it and didn't have a back-up.. was really kicking myself on that one...

yee-haw....

beak sync animation

2009-04-17T12:35:00.000-07:00

animation I just finished yesterday.. originally was going to be an ostrich but I hated the design...

this is also the last animation of second year... I'm dreading the end of school next week, but the good news is with any luck this will be my last summer spent doing non-artistic work... I'm also stoked and terrified about starting third year in sept...

western layouts tests and tonal

2009-04-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

Character design: "Performance"

2009-04-07T06:02:00.000-07:00

here's a project for character design I just finished.... don't know bout you but I'd run too... actually now that I think about it I once picked up a strawberry basket at work and realised there was a snake in there, scared the bejebus out of me.. huh..

2009-04-06T04:48:00.000-07:00

um so i pretty much needed to dump some more recent life drawings online for something and this pic was all I had.

muzzle animation

2009-03-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

our latest animation assignment, this goat was based on this old lady I saw at the mall last semester....

zoo and flipbook

2009-03-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

wow, so busy busy week.. scrambling to get animation story roughs and other things done.. anyways last saturday we all went to the zoo, which was so very very awesome..
anyways here's a page of drawings I did....

also this monday the flipbook page was due. I was animating at the same time so this was slapped together quite quickly. Put the multiply effect on some layers, threw in some background and some gradients, and huzzah, it looks like I made an effort..

I know I'm going to despise most of these drawings a year from now but oh well, I look forward to seeing everyone else's stuff..

superflakes

2009-03-18T13:34:00.000-07:00

A digital painting I just finished, using a layout from a previous assignment.. I wanted to see what it looked like in gray scale mode and it turned out looking like an old 50's black and white tv commercial, which is great cuz that was just what I was going for..

old west char designs

2009-03-14T18:18:00.001-07:00

some character designs I handed in this week... they have silly names....

and the farmer keeps a' ploughin....

2009-03-14T17:38:00.001-07:00

custom artwork for a friend of my dad, this was the picture on their wedding invite, the drawing is a large remake of the pic for his wife's birthday. Frankly I wish I could've moved the tractor over, I don't like this composition..

11x14, graphite

human lip sync

2009-02-28T08:13:00.000-08:00

voiced by sean hayes, from cats and dogs (warner bros) Incidently there's a sequel coming out this november..

when the dairy farm caught fire (verse 1)

2009-02-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

doodles

2009-02-28T07:37:00.000-08:00

drew this little girl and her friend in class.... walking home one day I was thinking what if there were a film that took place in downtown Toronto, and she immediately popped into my head...

walk run pan

2009-02-27T19:18:00.000-08:00

this took sooo long...

3d stuff

2009-02-27T12:43:00.000-08:00

some 3d models from the last two months of school..

That banana does not look very appetising...

We were supposed to bring in a toy to model for class and I completely forgot. However I was planning to head home for the weekend from Toronto after class, so I had two extra shirts and a toothbrush on me. So I modelled the toothbrush.

digital paintings, forests

2009-02-11T12:08:00.000-08:00

so I just finished some digital paintings in class today, thought what the hey....

the layout is by (I think) Micheal Hitchcox. Not taking credit for that, the layouts he gave us were awesome.

I like the night one, but I just grimace at the pink and green, I think originally the trees were going to be purple but at the same time i tried to make them green and ended up with an explosion of bleh.

We also got to class a half hour early and just drew. I asked what everyone else was drawing and got "steampunk dragons" so I did a very quick sketch. I hate drawing right on the tablet, (those legs are messed.) but this was good practice. Also, I love orange and blue. Stole the blue goggles idea from kristin, i never really draw steampunk (doesn't mean i don't love it) So i was beffudled as to what to do, really...

lip sync assignment

2009-01-29T19:28:00.000-08:00

So for the first time ever I was able to shower eat and sleep properly the night before an animation assignment was due. Spent all sunday working on it, finished it in class tues, then used the hour left over to in class to clean it up and shoot it. But to be fair this was an extremely basic assignment.

I love the voice in this clip, she reminds me of this old woman that works at my summer job (berry farm) now and then, even my boss hates her.

hi and some cafe sketches

2009-01-27T18:16:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. So this is my very first post on blogger. Frankly I just got bored with DA and wanted to try something a little more fun...
(Speaking of DA anything prior to jan 09 is posted up on here http://di---chan.deviantart.com/ I'll keep posting things of course, but theres no way in guatamengo I'm posting everything up here.)

Anyways I'm making a solid oath to post anything interesting as soon as its created, (as well as any cool stories or photos that deserve posting) and I figured 2009 was a good year to get started. We're only in the second week of winter term right now and already up to our necks in work, so provided I can swim my way out of it all there should be plenty of posts soon..

For now enjoy some charicatures, :)
(Ps. to anyone whos actually in these.. sorry...)